To Hunt the Broken
by crayonboxromance
Summary: There are some people who are so broken that there is no fixing them. That doesn't stop others from trying.
1. Chapter 1

_So guess who finally saw Captain America, loved it and copied the world in falling in love with Bucky. That's right! _

_I hope you all enjoy!_

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_**The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places - Ernest Hemingway**_

The Barbados sun was hot on the backs of their neck. Steve felt deeply uncomfortable with his new shaved hair and the casual clothes he was sporting. There was also an intricate tribal tattoo on his face to match his new passport as well. Sam had also undergone a bit of a transformation with different coloured contact lenses to make him more conspicuous than Steve and together they now went under the assumed names of James Carter and Snap Johnson from the passports Natasha had gotten for them before she left.

"Does she think she's funny?" Steve grumbled as he caught sight of himself in the side mirror of the car. Sam chuckled thinking that he thought Natasha was funny even if Steve did. It was pretty clever, to have people's focus so distracted by the tattoo they didn't even register his face. If they did look closer they were often distracted by Sam's newly blue eyes and charming smile. Steve shot his friend a look before noticing that the beautiful ocean view was giving way to forests. Sam's friend lived off the beaten track apparently, even for an island already off the beaten track. Before Sam had joined the Air Force he'd joined a crime syndicate in LA in which he had met this particular friend that the pair were going to see. She specialised in bionics but kept an interest in what she called 'creative weaponry' like the Falcon piece. She'd been in the syndicate as an arms technician, upgrading them when the bosses wanted. However she'd turned out to be a sleeper agent for the CIA and when she'd been called she took Sam with her, got him out and back on the straight and narrow. According to Maria Hill however, their inside source with Stark Industries, she'd left the CIA five years ago, retired to a tropical island and loaned out her expertise to industries like Stark's. In short this woman seemed the perfect fit for Sam and Steve's mission to hunt down Bucky. Steve still had very little idea what to say to Bucky if they managed to meet again. He feared the anger, the betrayal that Bucky might still feel from their past, when Steve had let him fall. No matter how many times people told him that it wasn't his fault Steve would never get over that feeling of guilt. Watching Bucky fall to his presumed death constantly played in glorious technicolour behind his eyelids when he closed his eyes. Whenever he slept the image continued to haunt him if the nights got too rough. His good dreams were generally images of a younger Peggy with her memory intact and the carefree Bucky from his childhood. Steve danced when he dreamed the good dreams. Suddenly Sam's fist punched his shoulder.

"Alright none of that. I don't know where you're going but it's not a good place." Sam scolded gently. Both of them depended on each other to tear them from their thoughts if ever they went to the dark places that had permanent residences in their minds. Steve shot him a smile and punched his shoulder right back in a thank you. It was then he finally realised that they'd come to a stop outside a secluded little cabin like building. It was a tiny wood building, painted a cheerful yellow with an iron roof. There was a wraparound porch decorated with fairy lights, a rocking chair and a comfortable looking swing seat. A patchwork quilt looking a little worse for wear was spread over the swing seat, obviously for the nights spent reading if the small side table with a lamp and a stack of books was anything to go by. A metal wind chime hung over the screen door and a bamboo wind chime, one of the ones being sold in the tourist shop they'd been in to get sunglasses, was hanging in the kitchen window. The usual window covers to shade them from the sun were missing though and Steve could see the heat rising in front of the lace curtains. All in all it looked like a cheerful and homey place to live, if you didn't count the huge iron structure looming over it from behind. Steve cocked an eyebrow.

"You just took inventory didn't you?" Sam asked amused by his friends' soldier antics although he only knew because he'd just done the same, noting all the things that pointed out his friend's existence within the house. The wind chimes and patchwork quilt were a dead give-away. So were the books on the little side table, new literature from the engineering world, instruction manuals for Stark technology and a Harlequin romance novel. Suddenly they heard a band from within the iron structure and a string of loud swear words. Exchanging looks the pair idled around the side of the building making sure to note everything they saw, possible cover they could later use and so on. They didn't know if anyone would be after them with both Hydra and SHIELD disbanded but it didn't hurt to be aware of your surroundings. They reached the open door of the building which, from the inside, looked like an extremely long and wide garage. All through the building was technology Steve didn't recognise piled high, car parts dotted here and there, equipment left plugged in haphazardly and projects upon projects left scattered around. The smell of engine grease, spilled petrol and if they weren't mistaken the smell of the nitroglycerin from a recently fired gun. There was also a constant buzzing from everything, like everything was vibrating. Basically it was utter chaos, you could barely move for everything lying around. Both he and Sam gingerly stepped towards where they could see the crown of a head bobbing around by an old car. It didn't work. Sam accidentally kicked a PAS pump wincing at the loud sound it made even over the cacophony of buzzing.

"Oh my god!" The head yelled in a distinctly feminine voice as the head fell backwards, presumably to the floor. Almost instantly the head popped back up along with the rest of the body. Steve blinked. He hadn't know what he'd been expecting with the resume that Maria Hill had given him but it certainly wasn't this. The woman was barely reaching five foot with short dark, dark brown hair that clearly hadn't been brushed that morning. Her denim overalls and the white shirt underneath were all covered in paint and oil stains but she looked like she could barely lift a wrench, let alone operate heavy machinery. What Steve noticed most of all though was the fact that her and Sam looked incredibly similar. They had the same dark skin, the same bone structure and the same brown, brown eyes. She blinked those eyes at them for a few seconds before a slow grin lazily spread across her face,

"Well, well, well. When I got the call I wondered what would bring Samuel "Snap" Wilson walking up to my little backwater door but I think I'm seeing the light. You on the lam again?" Her accent was 'generic American', trained to be instantly forgettable. You couldn't quite place where she was from which was the intention. Old habits apparently died hard.

"Not exactly Cassie." Sam hesitated for a moment unsure exactly how much to tell her. Cassie noticed this, smiled softly like this was familiar territory and put down the hex key she'd been playing with.

"Tell you what, we'll go inside and you can tell me everything."

Half an hour later Cassie knew everything once Steve had given the okay. They sat around her tiny kitchen table clutching pineapple juices and being cooled by the ceiling fan, "so let me get this straight. You and Captain America here brought down two of the biggest intelligence agencies in the world with a team of five? And not only is the Winter Soldier _not_ a ghost story we agents use to scare newbies but he is actually the not-so-late, great James Buchanan Barnes, best friend of Steve Rogers. Did anyone actually die in the forties?"

"We're trying to find him so that Steve can try and return his memories."

Cassie turned sharply to face Steve, narrowing her eyes at him, "you might not be able to save him. From the whispers I've heard of the Winter Soldier he was a ruthless, cold-blooded killer. Almost totally inhuman. You ready to face that?"

"With all due respect m'am I'm still going to try." There was a pregnant silence between the three of them then, an odd mix of super soldier, ex pararescueman and ex government engineer all sipping pineapple juice and listening the tropical bird life and the faint buzzing from the garage. All of them had half an ear on the conversation and half an ear for anything suspicious. It was Cassie, who had been staring them both assessingly for a few moments, who broke the silence with an easy grin, reminding Steve again of Sam. He wondered if there was a chance, no matter how slim, that they were related. Neither had mentioned it however.

"I can respect that. Not a lot I wouldn't do for Snap here. So I'm in for whatever you need me to do. What is that exactly?" She added as an afterthought.

"Do you remember my Falcon piece? We need a new one. Bucky also has a bionic arm which will need fixing if it hasn't been done by now. Anything else you can do would be appreciated. I'm afraid we can't offer much recompense." Steve added just in case that was a swaying point. Going by the sheer glee that had entered her eyes when the bionic arm had been mentioned it truly wasn't. She was already coming. Steve's prediction was confirmed when she waved the notion away. Instead she turned to them with a slightly wolfish grin.

"When do we leave?"


	2. Chapter 2

_Hi guys, really hope you're enjoying this! _

_I also hope I'm keeping all of these characters actually in character. Please let me know if you think they're not.  
Also please let me know if you think my character is a bit too Mary Sue, it's always a danger._

_Thanks to **WintersRedStar **and **heartdraconis19361 **for favouriting and following.  
and thank you to **AngelicScream, LoveisforEternity, Sapphire Psycho, Slytherin Studios, TheMostRandomofRandomWriters, papertowel1567 **and **somekindofwonderland** for following.  
_

_Hope to see you in the reviews one day ;)_

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_**Don't tell the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass** - **Anton Chekov**_

Two days later the three of them sat in the Arrivals area of Washington Dulles International Airport with a map spread out between them. Sam had a permanent marker lid between his lips as between them they labelled the map of the places they had researched over the past couple of days. They all cut quite the picture in what Steve thought was the opposite of incognito. Cassie had changed her name alongside them to Cassandra Johnson, using a passport created by a guy she 'just knew' on another island. She'd added coloured contacts to roughly the same colour as Sam, cementing their sibling like resemblance and making their sibling covers truly believable. Steve still had his face tattoo even though the liquid irritated his skin, or maybe it was just the feeling of something foreign on his face, a heightened awareness that it was there.

"Alright." Steve broke through his own thoughts by pointing out a street in Brooklyn, "he rescued me from a fight there. There's a diner that's still there; it's one of the first places I went to so it might be one of the places he goes to." Sam nodded and put a small dot there, one of the many that covered New York, Brooklyn and the surrounding areas. Cassie nodded too,

"There's been about three tweets about Bucky from that area. There's a Facebook picture from here in Washington, just outside the Smithsonian. Someone caught him on the sly saying that he looked a little like 'vintage hottie James Barnes'. Also some Facebook comments about hanging out the wreckage from some old army base in New Jersey and seeing some guy with a metal looking sleeve tattoo." She pointed at the places and Sam duly put small dots on them. Steve could see in his head that he was mentally plotting all the ways they could feasibly go to all locations on what very little funding they had. The wage SHIELD paid him was lying in his account but they couldn't access it without fear of altering _someone_ to their presence, the government maybe. Cassie had offered to pay for all of her expenses but since they couldn't pay her it was a very last resort. So they were relying on Sam's income which itself was sparse and dwindling. Yet another item to add to the list of things Steve felt guilty about, it was becoming quite a hefty old thing.

"How are you finding all of this out? Do you have some way of tracking him down or something?" Steve finally turned his attention to Cassie who had barely looked up from her phone, scrolling through some internet page on there.

"Yeah, Google alerts." She shot him an amused smile. For some reason she found it cute when Steve said something she felt made it obvious that he wasn't 'from around here'. It annoyed him to no end, it's not like he could help not being caught up on everything over the past seventy years. "I've got a couple of tags I follow on tumblr, a few hashtags on twitter and there are idiots all over the internet that don't have private Facebook accounts, which means I can access any of their content I want. Unfortunately some of the stuff is a good few weeks old although the Washington one is only about two days old."

Steve pretended to understand some of the terms to avoid her disrespectful fluffing of hair. When he'd told her how patronising he'd found the ruffling she'd stopped with a halfway apologetic grin. He could still tell that she found it amusing though and wanted to avoid the possibility all the same. Instead he simply said, "alright so we start with the most recent and work our way from there? Sam?"

"Sounds good. We can do that. Let's start with the Smithsonian, camp out at my place because I need to drop by work to take a shift before pulling a sick leave." Luckily their Barbados trip, a place Steve swore to go back to when this had all died down and to take Bucky with him, hadn't taken long. Cassie had promised them a place to stay if they hadn't annoyed each other by then. She was weary of new people and not exceedingly social, enjoying her few friends rather than feeling the urge to make more. She was also aware that her sometimes condescending attitude to most people made her rather unpopular at times although half the time she didn't know she was doing it. Steve nodded and with that their search for Bucky began in earnest.

**Washington DC**  
"Bucky probably won't be in the African Art Museum Cassie." Steve sighed attempting to ignore his almost vibrating acquaintance. She'd never been to the Smithsonian and was clutching a great many pamphlets in her hand. Even though she'd only lived a few miles west of the city, in a little suburb outside of Langley, Cassie had never quite made it to DC so she was genuinely thrilled to be there, especially for the museums.

"How do you know unless we explore it?" She insisted, "I think we should explore every single one of them _just_ to make sure. Especially the Air and Space museum. We should definitely check there for a really long time. Look there's this exhibi-" She was cut off from flicking through her creased pamphlet by a strong hand gripping her forearm. Steve was suddenly on high alert, standing completely upright. As a soldier he never quite lost his posture but now every nerve stood on edge. Cassie immediately started taking inventory of all the things around, all the things that could be possibly off kilter. She recalled what Bucky looked like now as well as before just in case he genuinely was here. There appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary and Bucky didn't appear to be around at all. However Steve's keen eyes narrowed in something and just like he was off without waiting for Sam who was asking at the reception if there had been any sightings of 'the man in the picture'. Cassie glanced around wildly for a moment wondering whether to go with him or wait for Sam. After a second's hesitation she followed Steve who was powering through the crowd like a man with a purpose. Quickly she followed after him, "James! Where are you going?"

"Here." 'Here' was a bench that didn't seem abnormal but Steve was staring at it like it held the key to a lost civilisation. It was just a solid bench, not even a plaque on it dedicating it to someone to make it interesting. No, all that was there was a fingerless glove.

"What is it?"

"The glove."

"What of it? Probably belongs to one of the homeless. Leave it for them to find later on."

"No. I've been punched by this glove. It belongs to Bucky."

That made Cassie raise an eyebrow and give it another once over. It looked just like any other leather fingerless glove. There was a strap around the wrist and holes around the knuckles. Then she shrugged. If anyone would know that this glove belonged to Bucky than it would be Steve. She believed him even if she didn't fully understand it. "I guess it's proof he's definitely been here then."

"No, it's more than that." Steve hadn't taken his eyes off the glove.

"So, what, you think it's a bread crumb?"

"I think it's a game." Steve took the glove.

**New Jersey**  
It was, quite literally, a bomb site. All of the fencing that had previously stopped people from entering had been ripped down and now teenagers freely explored the ruin of the old New Jersey army base. It looked like someone had attempted to clean some of it up but had given up halfway through. Some of the outer buildings were still in tact but the rest was in ruins.

"You wanna let us in on this game then Cap?" Sam asked from his perch atop a pile of cement that gave him a view of almost all of the site. Cassie eyed it from her place talking to the teenagers who had been the ones discussing the man with the metal sleeve. The cement piece he was on balanced precariously. Sam was old enough to look after himself and skilled enough to get himself out of any real harm should it fall but Cassie couldn't help but remember his younger days in LA. Sure he was only three years younger than her but she still felt that kind of maternal tug that had made her take notice of him then.

"When we were younger my mother would create scavenger hunts for us to keep us entertained. I think this may be something like that." Steve was clutching knee pads in his hands with a hopeful smile. Maybe there was some memory returning?

"Are you sure that's not just a hope?" Sam asked hesitantly. He didn't want to detract from Steve's optimism but there was optimism and then there was the beginning of desperate delusion. It made Steve hesitate for a moment. Cassie thanked the boys she'd been talking with, who'd said that the man had been there a week ago, and walked back over to the pair.

"Maybe it's a sign or something. That he knows we're searching for him?" She offered also not wishing to detract from the optimism, "and to keep searching for him? I don't know." She added apologetically with a shrug when Steve simply levelled a look at him. He knew he was perhaps being a little _too _hopeful but he couldn't help it. This was _Bucky,_ his best friend, with him until the end of the line, who he thought he had watched die before his very eyes only to find out that he'd been tortured and brainwashed into becoming a Hydra assassin.

"Then let's keep searching for him."

**New York**  
Cassie's tenants had rather fortuitously moved out a month before and she hadn't even bothered to advertise for new ones yet so she had a incredibly sparsely decorated flat in Mott Haven in the Bronx. There was only one double bed that both Steve refused to share with her instead offering to take the floor. Both declared that they felt more comfortable on the floor and she didn't bother arguing. Her Samuel "Snap" Wilson had always appreciated the home comforts of the home comforts of a bed but she supposed it had been years since they were in LA. There was a kitchen with a working oven and fridge, a comfortable enough sofa and a small table and chairs by the living room window. It was small but manageable, perfect for them. Her and Sam were playing card games on the table, out of their disguises now that they were safe from the prying eyes of CTV cameras, when Cassie felt a prickle on the back of her neck. Quickly she glanced out of the window.

"How do you hunt someone with only one connection to his past in the world?"

"How?" Sam asked, not even bothering to look up from his winning hand.

"You don't. They come to you." Outside the window, illuminated in a half light from a lamppost was James Buchanan Barnes with his metal arm glinting in the light.


End file.
